The proposed changes to NASA’s exploration plans have, in the last few months, generated a lot of discussion and debate (if not necessarily as much insight) among those who, by profession and/or interest, consider themselves part of the space community. But what about the general public? A new poll indicates that they haven’t been paying much attention.
The poll, released Saturday by The Everett Group, surveyed 1,200 people in the US between March 27 and April 12, three days before the president’s speech. When asked how familiar people were with the proposed changes announced by the FY11 budget proposal released at the beginning of February, only 10% said they were very familiar, with an additional 24% saying they were somewhat familiar. By contrast, 42% said they were “not at all familiar” with the proposed changes. Yet, 70% said they were somewhat or very interested in the US space program! Adding to that lack of knowledge, 35% said they believed there were private companies in the US today launching humans into Earth orbit. (One could argue that Space Adventures is such a company, but it would be something of a stretch as they’re more a broker for the Russian flight that an actual launch services provider.)
Asked what they thought of the plan “based on what you know” (which wasn’t much, apparently), 42% had “mixed feelings” about it, compared to 24% who supported it to some degree and 32% who opposed it to some degree. How much those people oppose the plan because of its change in direction, versus general opposition to human spaceflight, isn’t clear from the poll results. However, there is a nearly equal split in another question about the government’s priorities: 45% say the bigger priority should be in cutting spending on space to reduce the deficit, while 47% say it should be to increase space program spending to maintain US leadership.
Another recent poll by Rasmussen Reports found the situation even worse for space advocates: 49% said that, given the state of the economy, the US should “cut back on space exploration”, versus 34% who said no. That poll found a split on the question of whether the space program should be funded by the government or the private sector : 38% say the private sector and 36% the government.
I kind of wonder how many of the people with the attitude that we shouldn’t be funding space exploration during this economy are running this year and in 2012.
Great post, Jeff … Just goes to prove what I’ve been saying all along. Most people couldn’t care less.
Kind of interesting that the blogosphere is so …. unobservant … as well. The economic sites I visit frequently haven’t mentioned Obama’s NASA address; one political site (Washington Monthly) used a line to say Obama had “recommitted” himself to NASA; SLATE gave it 5 minutes on a podcast (with the usual complaint that poverty and hunger needed the money so much more than rockets), a couple of grad students in planetary science couldnt’t understand why “shuttle supporters” might object to be laid off. Basically, outside of a dozen or so explicitly space-oriented websites and maybe a dozen Congressional districts, this wasn’t news at all.
I can’t recall any presidential announcement on space issues which gained so little attention in the past fifty years.
mike shupp wrote @ April 18th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
, a couple of grad students in planetary science couldnt’t understand why “shuttle supporters†might object to be laid off…
since finding “other work” is a common trait for grad students in planetary science! (joke)
Robert G. Oler
FYI, I e-mailed Dr. Steve Everett of The Everett Group to ask who commissioned/funded the poll. He said no one, they did the poll themselves as a public service.
I didn’t see any particular political slant in the results, which somewhat mirror the January 2010 Rasmussen Reports poll.
@mike shupp
“I can’t recall any presidential announcement on space issues which gained so little attention in the past fifty years.”
I wasn’t paying as much attention to other Presidential announcements, but if you look at the links from Spacetoday.net (thank you Jeff for that site, too) there seems to be a general uptick in coverage, especially over the weekend. Usually you see only slight space coverage on Saturday and Sunday, but this weekend was heavy. It was one of the more heavily covered topics over the last two years, up there with major launches, Apollo anniversary, and the Phoenix Mars lander landing. I especially can’t remember so many editorials.
I noticed that the media paid much more attention to the other two Presidential announcements on the 15th – President Obama’s statement on mine safety and his order to permit gays to visit their partners in hospitals. Space announcements lose share of mind to almost anything.
But what the majority of people think about space doesn’t matter very much exactly because they don’t care and space issues won’t influence their vote. The 10% (as estimated by many polls over several decades) who are really interested in space and keep themselves informed are the ones that matter. They are the ones that write letters, make phone calls, and write comments on line. They are the ones who let space influence their votes. What I would like to see are some polls that focus on the 10%.
P.S. To illustrate how effective committed minorities are, the interested public for agriculture policy is only 4%, much smaller than for space, yet see how many subsidies they get. Also, vast uncommitted majorities have favored stricter gun control in past decades, sometimes outnumbering the anti-gun control people be multiples. Notice who won.
Doesn’t sound like our 35 year plus ‘Mission to LEO’ program has captured the public’s imagination:-)
Space, farming, and guns are very different things politically, with different sorts of constituents and protagonists, very different social and legislative histories, etc. (Dairy farmers and corporations like ADM make sizable campaign contributions to Congressmen they favor, for example; anti-gun control people make that issue the one that determines their vote. They don’t have the same sort of “committed minorities” I’m trying to say.)
As for collecting the views of the top 10% of the space-knowledgeable voters… I’m dubious. I’m dubious ethically, since I think democracies ought to consider the views even of people who are naive and uninformed, I’m dubious pragmatically, since I expect you’d find the top 10% are split just as widely on most issues as the bottom 90%. Look at the comment threads here or at Rand Simberg’s site or NasaWatch — it isn’t ignorance of rocket physics or economics that leads to the shouting; it’s different politics, different notions as to how American corporations operate or ought to operate, different ideas of what are plausible scenarios for developing human spaceflight, etc. Simply taking a “better” poll of space-interested people isn’t likely to produce consensus.
Marcel – I think the thing is, spaceflight in some form HAS captured the public’s imagination, to some extent. Think of all the times someone has described support for spaceflight as “a mile wide and half an inch deep.” If people really lacked interest, the support would be just about an inch wide. And think of the times pollsters show the public thinks the federal budget can be fixed by cutting the space program. This wouldn’t be true if people didn’t just generally assume space programs are really large and imposing and staffed by millions of high paid scientists and astronauts and bureaucrats doing obscure, likely dangerous things.
mike shupp wrote :
“it isn’t ignorance of rocket physics or economics that leads to the shouting; it’s different politics, different notions as to how American corporations operate or ought to operate, different ideas of what are plausible scenarios for developing human spaceflight,”
My politics is dominated by volumn, what policy grants access to the most users, both government and the private sector, increases investment by both and generates higher launch rates.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 12:24 am
Doesn’t sound like our 35 year plus ‘Mission to LEO’ program has captured the public’s imagination:-)..
I dont think that there is really any space mission for human spaceflight that can over any sustained periods of time “capture” the publics imagination.
Spacefans think of space and human spaceflight in some weird way. Over on the facebook “save our space program” all the beloved really clamor for Obama to “come see a launch” or “if he would just walk around mission control” as if to say “wow then he would see what we see.
Problem is that is not how it works. Human spaceflight even during the race to the Moon stopped being a “household” topic quickly during Mercury and never was one under Gemini except when disaster lurked. The only real time people tuned in during Apollo was 11 but by 12 they had vanished and as 13 was on its way to the Moon…people were watching something else (see the movie if you dont believe me…its accurate)…by the time 17 did its act, it barely got time on the evening news.
We have (as you are fond of pointing out )a war going on in Afland and Iraq…and for the most part unless something :”special” happens the people just tune out. On some of the “more left” blogs the anti Iraq war folks use to shout “if only they would show the names longer or if only the coffins would get on the news” or some equivalent…but the fact is that it doesnt matter UNLESS something really “unique” happens.
Fan boys (and girls) who think that some goal would capture or unite the public are just dreaming. At some point Musk or someone will launch people into orbit, when that happens the networks will tune in, but if it goes fine the second shot no one will care and they wont care until something “happens”.
Shut down atlantic aviation because of volcanoes, then Chris Jansing of MSNBC goes there and reports…EVA’s on the space station…as one kid here in Houston says “boring”.
I know it excites you and all the other groupies…most Americans it just doesnt.
Robert G. Oler
Gary Oleson wrote @ April 18th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
the only way I would be for that, is that if the ones polled are going to be the only ones paying for it.
Robert G. Oler
“I dont think that there is really any space mission for human spaceflight that can over any sustained periods of time “capture†the publics imagination.”
I disagree, although it may not capture blanket attention, I do think the public can be more engaged. I think it will be in things like, the first texas holdem tournament in space sponsered by a casino consortium. The first zero-G sport that is established and catches on. Or reality type programs like an “alien hunters” like ghost hunters on the sci/fi channel.
I think it will things like this that are not even thought about now.
I don’t think it will be manufacturing, or mining, or anything of the really mundane stuff.
Another show I thought about would be:
ROCKET BUILDERS
Like the “chopper” motorcycle shows. Some builder like carmack or musk slamming around the shop and all the little dramas of rocket building and launching.
smiles
The rocket shop folks will have to lift weights and get tattoos.
And of course the buxom host.
Well the big thing is that television vehicles will serve as advertising platforms for more of the general population. Anything that raises awareness is a good thing.
ROCKET BUILDERS!
Ah, my friend! A lot of it takes place in rooms the size of football fields with long rows of desks seperated by three foot aisles, where four or five hundred engineers sit looking at printouts and plugging numbers into their computers. Not just one room, but dozens, in one large sprawling building — backstopped by people in similar rooms in Houston and Washington DC. It’s generally about as dramatic as working at a life insurance company.
Trust me, I’ve done both.
introduction, set-up, conflict, resolution. The recipe for television, location is irrelavant.
Armidillo only has like 25 employees I thought, scaled, blue origin, aero, spaceshipcompany, are all pretty small shops, musk is only around 1000.
The picture you paint are 15,000 plus.
Vladislaw — At it’s peak, as I recall, Rockwell had 26 thousand people in Downey (about 20 miles SW of central Los Angeles), 4 thousand in Seal Beach (about 20 miles south of that) and 5 or 6 thousand at Rocketdyne (about 50 miles NW of Downey), most of them working on Shuttle. (There were several other Rockwell plants in the LA area, working on the B-1 bomber, nuclear power plants, aircraft navigation systems, satellitles, etc.)
That was in the mid-late 1970’s. and it’s basically all vanished into history, (The Downey plant got turned into a movie studio at one point, a place to shoot special effects).
If we were doing it now, shuttle could have been built with fewer people. Methods have changed. We used to code up decks of program language and data, send them off to clerks to be typed up on computer cards, submit boxes of cards to a central computer office in the afternoon, and hope our job had been run successfully the next morning. Now engineers input their own data and run their jobs, and make changes and rerun their jobs within minutes.
Quite a different world.
Different materials, joined by adhesives rather than nuts and bolts. Lighter and more capable electronics. Cell phones and cameras to facilitate communication. Better knowledge of aeronautics….
That said, shuttle was a much larger job than anything Scaled Composites, Armadillo, or SpaceX have attempted — or will be attempting in the next ten years, even if things go extraordinarily well. It’s a nice question, wondering what it would cost to repeat designing and building the shuttle at this point.
The only way the mundane stuff captures attention is when the mundane stuff becomes a LARGE part of the economy, much like auto manufacturing has become an important part of our economy, or banking.
Really, at this point, either that, or something purely entertainment (Rocket Builders, or my personal idea, West Wing meets NewSpace company) is what will capture peoples attention. You can’t capture it and really hold it unless it has some way to really interact with people on a daily basis.
A lot of it takes place in rooms the size of football fields with long rows of desks separated by three foot aisles, where four or five hundred engineers sit looking at printouts and plugging numbers into their computers. Not just one room, but dozens, in one large sprawling building — backstopped by people in similar rooms in Houston and Washington DC.
The reality unshow: Make-Work Zombies.
FWIW, to me, these polls reveal something vaguely unsettling. People in America care about the US space program… so long as it takes no effort. They are interested and even hold strong views but are not interested in making the effort to actually learn what is happening and what the current plans might be.
This seems to be a common theme in politics on all subjects. People hold strong views and will defend them aggressively. However, these views are in no ways based on fact or actual knowledge. The ultimate in self-actualisation: Belief trumps fact – People live in their own version of reality that has no connection to the wider world, only to their small personal experience of the world.
Ben – I think it’s very hard for ordinary people “to learn what is happenning” in the space field. The general interest magazines like LIFE and LOOK which used to carry middling long human interest stories about astronauts have dried up; TIME and NEWSWEEK don’t discuss the ins and outs of the program, there aren’t a whole lot of newspaper stories dealing with space unless you live in a city with a NASA facility. Most libraries don’t stock space-related books from what I can tell, with the exception of astronaut bios and introductory stuff aimed at elementary school kids.
True, there aree bookstores, and you can find space related books at Amazon. But if you don’t start with a fair degree of knowledge, you can’t evaluate what you’re looking at. Greg Easterbrook’s an authority on spaceflight, right? That’s what his book covers say. He’s certainly as knowledgable as Carl Sagan or that Oberg fellow or Joan Johnson-Freese! And Richard Hoagland is an expert on what NASA found on Mars, and John Fuller wrote this really incredible book THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY about aliens and Bruce Gagnon’s revealing disturnbing truths about the space program that They Don’t Want You To Know and …. Bear in mind, most American adults do not go out of their way to read nonfiction.
So there’s not much useful information which neophyte space observers can lay hands on, and there’s a vast pile of stuff which most people have problems evaluating. And there’s the internet, and about 80% of the space stuff on the internet is …. at best, confusing, unless you’ve practically got a college degree in some science field. Hell, we can’t agree amongst ourselves here at Space Politics whether returning to the Moon and building a base is a good idea — why expect some housewive from Schenectedy to have a firm opinion, complete with supporting facts and evidence?
And, if that housewife shows up at this site, reads and weighs our opinions about space, and adopts some of them, what else is she committing herself to? She totally buys Rand Simberg’s opinion on the importance of propellant dumps, let’s say — is she sort of obligated to accept his view that NASA is basically a money wasting federal jobs program? Should she agree that Tea Partiers are the true spiritual descendents of the Founding Fathers, and that Democrats are imps of Satan? Should she be cool to the idea of man-caused global warming>
Granted, this is a a bit facetious, but … It takes effort, sometimes great effort, to form political opinions consciously, and most of us take shortcuts — we take away lessons from our parents, some of us have inspiring memories of particular teachers and their expressed opinions, we listen carefully to our pastors, we nod when our bosses say something that sounds sensible, we agree casually with neighbors on unimportant issues, we quiet our doubts when we don’t want to disappoint our children …. and when we’ve done all that, most of our political opinions have been formed for us. We KNOW what to think about global warming (almost). We’re CERTAIN (90% anyhow) about the need for health care reform. We just KNOW what to do with spaceships! (Absolutely.)
Economists discuss this from time to time. It’s why most economists don’t vote. It takes too much time and effort to cast a really informed ballot; your effort is overbalanced by fools who vote their prejudices; and very likely if you’d studied the issues more carefully you’d vote differently than you actually did. There is no solution to the problem (generally).
mike shupp wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Bravo Mike! This comment, and those of the others on this thread should be required reading before commenting.
“Most libraries don’t stock space-related books from what I can tell, with the exception of astronaut bios and introductory stuff aimed at elementary school kids.”
It’s funny you note this, I was coming back here to relate my recent experience at a school board meeting (new principal interviews) held in a 6th grade classroom. I wandered over to one of the bookshelves, my eye caught by the “Science Fiction” label on the shelf. I was somewhat dismayed to find the contents were almost all books of the “Goose Bumps” genre, kid’s horror and fantasy.
If this is what we’re feeding our best and brightest, there’s no wonder we have a serious lack of home-bred science and engineering students in the U.S..
I’ve got to see what I can do to augment the selection with some of the teen focused Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, Silverburg, etc..
We are what we eat.
Florida Today reports that the latest Qunnipac University poll shows President Obama’s popularity in Florida is up from January.
So much for the theory that his space proposal would cost him in Florida.
mike shupp wrote:
“Most libraries don’t stock space-related books from what I can tell, with the exception of astronaut bios and introductory stuff aimed at elementary school kids.”
What sentimental garbage! You may no find space literature at your local library. It is more a comment about the uselessness of a small library in the electronic age than anything else. Your tax dollars at work. Space techno-porn is more widespread than ever, in print, and online. This site if proof of that.
Here is a personal instantanous poll:
Here below are the 20 (twenty) CNN.com headlines of 1 minute ago. After that, the list of most popular stories (by CNN.com measurement) the same moment in time. Notice the nature of the topics.
1.Navy to help travelers stranded by ash
2.Ash costing airlines millions CNNMoney
3.Latest developments on ash cloud
4.Market blast kills 22 in Pakistan
5.China quake toll rises to nearly 2,000
6.Obama to speak on Wall Street
7.Toyota to pay $16.4M fine CNNMoney
8.Space shuttle landing delayed
9.Citi reports $4.4 billion profit CNNMoney
10.Students mourn murdered principal
11.Ticker: Conservative hopeful blasts GOP
12.Martin: Welcome Tea Party protests
13.Intriguing: An unlikely Tea Partier
14.Cold case: Field searched for teen
15.How not to raise a bully Time
16.Lady Antebellum tops at ACM Awards
17.Seinfeld wants to save your marriage
18.School puts boy on ‘bully list’
19.Kate Gosselin cries in TV interview
20.How to nominate a CNN Hero
Most popular:
1. Actress accused of sham marriage
2. Kate Gosselin’s teary TV breakdown
3. Child survivors of Oklahoma City bombingOklahoma
4.City blast remembered
5.15 years laterVitamins: The good, the bad, the unknown
There is (or was) a show about hobby rocketry. Actually, it was kinda fun, although any connection between it and the space program was tenuous.
Although the two statements seem to conflict:
A position on space policy doesn’t follow normal left/right alignment and…
A lot of the current talking about Obama’s space policy is all about Democrats and Republicans.
Leaving aside those for whom it is a hometown issue, people either “get” space or they don’t, and the range from right to left can run from Mark Whittington to me. That’s in the abstract.
When a specific politician (usually a President) puts forward a space policy, then politics come into play, as our opinions are shaded by the color of glasses we are wearing.
I’ll step in with a bit of personal history.
Born in 1945, I grew up with von Braun’s propaganda and much more. I got very interested in things like astronomy, physics and space exploration. I obtained a degree in physics from Rutgers in 1967. I do remember watching Apollo 11 on TV in July 1969. I don’t remember Apollo 12 at all. The last Apollo mission was in December 1972. That was my third full time semester of grad work in physics. That was when I decided to leave physics. My next adventure in grad school was in social psychology. Why did I get interested in space again? Gerry O’Neill.
What interest do I have in space, science, etc., today? Cultural reform. Part of me wonders whether our greatest space triumphs are behind us. And by “our” I mean the entire human race.
Sorry to be so depressing.
“Space, farming, and guns are very different things politically”
Yes, and it useful to note how they are different. One of the differences is that most of the space-interested 10% support a vigorous space program, though they debate what kind. The opposition to space generally doesn’t care enough to make a fight. Our lack of organization is more than matched by the opposition’s lack of passion and commitment.
The closest thing to a long-running fight we have is the hoary old man vs. robot debate that most of us are bored with and a plurality of us have resolved by saying “both”. I also don’t think there is a serious split among the 10% over the current policy fight, despite all the passion appearing in these threads.
The major organizations that represent the 10% (Space Frontier Foundation, National Space Society, Planetary Society) have all come out in favor of the new plan. Since they are, by definition, the most interested and best informed, that probably ends the popular side of the debate for all practical purposes. There is no broad popular opposition to the new plan.
The positions of the directly affected corporations and unions are, of course, a separate matter.
@mike shupp
What people like to see is progress! Its just not interesting for most Americans to see a space program that is content to just go around in circles. Space colonization is the next major step in our cultural evolution. We are obsessed with this concept in our fictional media. And NASA should serve as the principal pioneers in this effort in order to enhance the ability of privateers and private citizens to commercialize and settle this New Frontier.
I know that there are those who instinctively feel that the Earth is the center the universe and ventures beyond our atmosphere have very limited practical use and that we should really just focus on things right here on Earth.
But there are also those of us who instinctively feel that the expansion of human civilization beyond the Earth is inevitable and probably the best ways to grow our economy, preserve our species, and to save the Earth !
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
But there are also those of us who instinctively feel that the expansion of human civilization beyond the Earth is inevitable and probably the best ways to grow our economy, preserve our species, and to save the Earth !..
and then there are the other 99 percent or so Americans who find people who constantly talk about colonizing space…everything from obsessed to unable to deal with reality
Robert G. Oler
I didnt think this would turn into a space show debate…but space shows dont work for the same reason that some shows about the navy (SuperCarrier/Emerald point NAS or NAS Emerald Point cant recall which) dont work and other shows…JAG and NCIS do.
Most space shows get caught up in something about space, but the shows that work about the Navy or CSI or whatever have plots about “people” and wrap them in the plots about the Navy or whatever. (even the CSI New York plot which had Lisa Nowak all over it worked because it reduced the episode to basic “who did it”).
(I guess a good plot would be “who could be the astromom” Lori Garver and Lisa Nowak could battle it out on the space station…sorry couldnt resist)
But what this has to do with generating support for NASA is beyond me.
Robert G. Oler
A little perspective.
Columbus’ inadvertent discovery of North America was in 1492.
Magellan’s circumnavigation of the Earth was 1519-1522.
According to this site, the first commercial world cruise was in 1922.
That’s a gap of 400 years.
We really are just at the beginning of space exploration. Unless you’re one of those people who thinks the world is 6,000 years ago, humanity has been evolving to this point for millions of years.
We will inevitably go to the rest of the solar system and to the stars. It won’t happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen some day.
Using the 400 year analogy, I think that by 2410 we won’t see Starfleet and warp drive but we will see humanity spread out in the solar system, with a permanent lunar colony and perhaps on Mars as well, and space stations everywhere.
Let’s not forget, though, what it was that drove sailing technology to the point where it was routine enough to have commercial global travel.
It was greed.
Imperialism ran rampant as England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and other nations sought to conquer.
Thankfully, we’ve grown beyond that, I hope. So absent that driver, the only motive would be capitalism. That’s why commercial access to Low Earth Orbit is so important.
But we also see Obama working to strengthen and expand our international partnerships. Russian President Medvedev said last week he’d like to have an international space summit, which I think is an excellent idea. If nations are committed to each other to jointly explore the solar system, it’s more likely to happen, even though it may not happen fast enough for we space geeks.
“””and then there are the other 99 percent or so Americans who find people who constantly talk about colonizing space…everything from obsessed to unable to deal with reality”””
The same people who rolled their eyes when told about the coming rise of the internet, or human flight. Until they can buy it, rent it or consume it, it’s not a serious thing for serious people.
Mr. Oler,
You are absolutely right, that space shows really can’t be about space – they have to be about people. That, frankly, is why I find when people talk about space documentaries, and why aren’t there more of them, I find it ridiculous.
And there is a successful model for space shows – Star Trek. Of course, that isn’t about space, its about people. And so, can we do a space show, that is near term based, but that really focuses on people, rather than on space. (In many respects, this is why the loss of the Mission to Mir TV show was a real tragedy). Actually, the space show that I really expect to see soon is a Pro Wrestling in a Bigelow station at sometime soon.
As for why – it all comes back to the issue of people having a relationship with space. If we can build a relationship (either through a bunch of new companies that utilize space, or a space bunny) then its more likely that space will have a greater role in society.
Perhaps slightly OT to this thread, but it’s interesting how certain NASA watchers can issue a curt dismissal of this Everett survey as being irrelevant and useless.
I find that response somewhat naive. The accusation is that since the poll finds the same old problems, it’s useless. Seems to me that’s precisely why it’s valuable. Of course, then we’re told that the popularity of Avatar is proof that the public loves human space flight, no matter what the survey says. At least that’s what it sounds like.
Actually, the space show that I really expect to see soon is a Pro Wrestling in a Bigelow station at sometime soon.
I concur . . .
And, it is quite possible that no NASA dollars would need to be expended in the making of that show.
You are absolutely right, that space shows really can’t be about space – they have to be about people.
Indeed.
And the story of our species making the attempt to become spacefaring would appear to be one of the more compelling stories ever told.
Marcel, progress fell out of fashion about 30 years ago.
Go read some of the contemporary responses to O’Neill’s call to colonize space sometime.
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Stephen. I dont think we are going to have to wait 400 years. One reason I like the new policy is that it opens the door to innovation and incorporation of human spaceflight into things that matter into every day society…and if that happens just once then it will happen again and again and then the future comes so fast, you can barely keep your breath.
The trick (and again what is impressive to me about Obama in general) is that one has to open the key to innovation and incorporation in space some will fail, but a few will succeed and after that…
We get to the planets (and the Moon) and the other places at some point, to use a line Kolker frequents “not because it is hard but because it is easy”. What most people dont grasp is how Douglas put together the DC-3 and Boeing put together the B-17.
Both did it as a pure commercial effort (sorry Mark there was only one venue for the B-17 but it was a commercial effort) by pasting together technology that had been largely done by NACA. Both airplanes (as does the 787) have “NACA airfoils” both airplanes used engines which NACA had spent some time helping deal with difficult issues on…
What Musk is doing is “close” to that effort. He has not spun up much technology but he has perfected technology that is in hand and made it affordable. This is what both companies did in both airplanes.
What has held space back is the project mentality that so many on the right (and to be fair some other places) want demand to preserve. They cannot explain it, Whittington is the spokes person for that…they turn to goofy statements like “the Chinese taking over the Moon” but those are more politics driven then anything else.
My youngest daughter is 3 weeks old today. I firmly expect that if neither the Taliban or “the base” or the GOP right wing win in determining the course of the future, that by the time she is old enough to take her Great Great Grandfathers “lever gun” on its 200th anniversary shoot..we will be using NEO’s for a lot of things and a good sized effort on the Moon, Mercury and Mars…with The Flag of The United States perhaps being put on one of the moons of Saturn by a citizen of The Republic. (I have a tad of “jingoism”!) Meanwhile the Constellation folks will still be saying “if only we had listened” (LOL)
As for politics. As I noted on this board a bunch of months ago the three races to watch in 2010 will be the Senate Race in CA and FL and the TX/CA gov. The political evolution which started in 2008 Pres race will have its next turn there. And I see nothing to change my mind.
Robert G. Oler
“But what this has to do with generating support for NASA is beyond me.”
It was not what would generate support for NASA. It was raising public awareness in general. For me, we don’t know what it will be, but with opportunities of better access we should see movement before to long.
From a proposal from Stoneaerospace:
“Consider, in contrast, the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson rightly saw the exploration and exploitation of the American west as the key to expanding the nation. He thus seized upon the concept of the expedition and sold it to Congress – at a cost, ultimately, of almost 1% of the federal budget in 1803 ($17B in today’s dollars). To ensure success, Jefferson issued Lewis a Presidential Letter of Credit, pledging the nation, such that the expedition could acquire any goods and services it needed. In effect, the Lewis and Clark expedition was a federally funded, independent entity to which all U.S. federal agencies, including the military, were commanded to provide services as requested. Importantly the Letter of Credit extended, without restriction, tariff or the like, to any foreign nation or company.”
http://www.stoneaerospace.com/news-/pictures/ShackletonCraterExpeditionV32.pdf
This is Stone’s plan to hit the moon with no return fuel but make it there. An all or nothing type expedition. He thinks it could close the business case.
The new plan recognizes O’Neill’s fundamental insight – it’s expensive to get into and out of a gravity well. You don’t want to do it until and unless you’re ready to pay the price.
Ferris Valyn wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Ferris (and I dont mind “Robert” BTW grin) I agree with everything you wrote. I think that the Mission to Mir TV show would have been interesting…
STar Trek is the premier show about people in space, because it could have been about a wagon train (grin) or I think it was “a wagon train to the stars”…
I imagine one could do a TV show that captured some interest about people down in the South Pole…I think that there is enough spontaneity and lack of regimentation (or allowing of behavior outside the mold) to do that there. Right now a reality show at NASA (ie something that follows real events) would have to deal with a PAO and agency policy that adopts some “mythic image” of both the agency and actual people who fly in space.
A JAG or NCIS type show would have to deal with (to get any kind of cooperation) an agency that would require that image to be part of the show.
the subset of people who fly in space is far to small to get something that sparks human drama…the folks who fly on the space shuttle and station are judged in their activities by how well they do not have human drama (although one would really like to have a moment with some impartial observer like Richard G and hear what he saw hints are there that all is not perfect!) …for instance the Navy doesnt care that on NCIS some of its people turn out to (shock) kill others..I suspect that wouldnt fly at NASA.
Robert G. Oler
“A JAG or NCIS type show would have to deal with (to get any kind of cooperation) an agency that would require that image to be part of the show.”
I was not thinking along those lines, more like low budget reality shows. The one I used was the show that makes choppers. I agree, it is about the people and the manufactured drama. Which I refered to.
Because there will be commercial access it will, granted, let billionaires travel to space. But i think about all the entrepreneurs that will want to goto space and how do they pay for it. That is where the reality aspect and using it as the means to pay for your ride. Plus with an ad or sponser revenue you can raise. (commercial shot in space?)
That is where I believe you are going to see some reallly inovative and creative “out of the box” thinking, how do i pay for my ride.
What is the mother of invention?
Personally, I think a show about NASA is exactly the wrong type of place. It suffers from being way to big, and you are absolutely right, the culture wouldn’t allow for some of the plot lines.
Now, a show about a fictional NewSpace company, thats a different story….
Vladislaw wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
At one point for “me” Lewis and Clark was a good model, indeed in our piece in TWS we used the name “Lewis and Clark” as that of whatever group would do “exploration”. I still think that the notion of doing things outside an established agency, as a “one time” then dissolve group drawing on outside expertise is a good idea.
The problem is of course that right now almost everything LC did could be done by our machines.
The shuttle takes 200 million a month at least to keep intact the infrastructure that flies it. IF we were really interested in exploring the Moon and figuring out what was there…that would be a keen budget to throw one uncrewed platform after another at the issue. And I bet that pretty soon we would figure out a lot about what really is and what really isnt available there.
We would know almost immediately that there is no real great river that opens up the West…just prairie with lots of grass for the horses to eat.
BTW I will read the entire proposal, it was just to big to do now…in about oh 9 hours I will be up with the youngest doing the bottle/burp thing…
Robert G. Oler
Ferris Valyn wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Now, a show about a fictional NewSpace company, thats a different story….
I would not be surprised if Musk is thinking along those lines. He does that sort of stuff. Marry “Astronaut Farmer” with an effort to fly the first non NASA human space mission. Find some people who are technically competent, but not personality impaired …
I can see Musk doing that…anniversary of Glenn’s first flight… (Heck Billy bob might be available although my first choice would be Tommy Lee Jones!))
Robert G. Oler
I too like the idea of a show about a NewSpace company, perhaps a couple of decades from now. The characters could ride to orbit as passengers in a Dream Chaser or SpaceShipTwo derivative, chat with the crew, and reminisce about the days when only astronauts could go into space. You remember, before you could just login and buy a ticket. Then the adventure starts …
A TV show about NewSpace could perhaps be called,”Welcome to Mojave!” or “Mojave Madness”
It could include scenes at a future Spaceport America as well as elsewhere.
Gary Oleson wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
I personally think a great plot would be to send Calleigh Duquesne or Sarah Sidle up to ISS to solve a murder mystery. just joking…
Robert G. Oler
Or how about a spy story? Or perhaps corporate/international warfare over mineral deposits because there’s no legal way to stake a claim? A return to the lawless frontier …
Cue Mata Hari!
There was a show about newspace setting up a salvage operation that had Andy Griffith going up and picking up space debris and Apollo junk. Late 70s. Salvage 1.
Gary Oleson wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 8:09 pm and Ed.
I think that a plausible intrigue script could be written about some topic like that using the ISS as a backdrop. I dont see NASA as a group liking it or even participating in it…but it could be entertaining. Hmmm
still think the idea of a Calleigh Duquesne or Sarah Sidle involved would make things cook.
Robert G. Oler
JAG did a NASA episode, so did Monk, as did House, all pretty good, as these things go. I’m sure other shows did so, but they all seem to be novelty episodes.
Standard fare for TV producers seem to be endless variants on the cop shows, lawyer shows and doctor shows, and of course, brainless sitcoms with the occasional “very special episode.”
Setting one of these revised boilerplates in a large Mars settlement might have a better chance of making a personal connection with the audience, if the TV producers would open their minds to it, and didn’t make the mistake of relying on gimmickry instead of real story lines.
Setting a show inside NASA would, I agree, have to upset NASA to be successful, along the lines of Dallas, JAG, MASH or CSI. It would surely be a lot more engaging than a NASA news conference!
A “West Wing” version of NASA (call it “E Street”) could adapt story lines from actual NASA history. Imagine the possibilities…
Make a connection with the audience that way, and I suspect a few more people would experience an “interest up-tick” in actual spaceflight. Not to mention the media.
There was a syndicated series in 1996-1997 called The Cape which was cancelled after one season.
Here are some clips from YouTube:
Clip #1
Clip #2
Clip #3
Clip #4
Clip #5
Search YouTube for The Cape Corbin Bernsen and you’ll find a lot of clips uploaded by someone. Unfortunately, the series never came out on DVD so this is as close as we can come.
The show got to be kinda goofy at times, and I think they hit a creativity wall because after all how many times can you put Shuttle in jeopardy, but I loved the title theme music and it was mostly filmed on location at KSC.
The final episode had one orbiter stranded in space due to damage (similar to Columbia) so another orbiter had to launch to rescue the crew. The “money shot” was the two orbiters flying in formation over the Earth.
Correction on Clip #1 above … The link should be:
Clip #1
Clip #1 and Clip #3 in the prior message were the same.
of course any episode concerning NASA has to deal with the “story” concerning Rich Kolker and the JSC police…gateway crimes. The powers that be let him go to Benin anyway…no traffic cops there.
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 19th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
The Cape was a little goofy at times but “OK”. I was sorry that they didnt branch out a tad on episodes…
The JAG episode concerning the space shuttle was pretty good. Rich and I had a episode we outlined but never sent in where Harm and his cohort at the time (who I liked far better then his second one) flew the Delta Clipper…Bill G liked the outline of it.
Robert G. Oler
Just saw the shuttle landing this morning. Why on earth would a nation throw away such a clearly wonderful capability? How on earth did this nation that landed on the moon come to the point where our space program is directed by nihilists? After this marvelous display of astronautics and professionalism in landing an unpowered craft the size of a DC-8, Elon Must is readying his ‘tin cans’. Some call it ‘game changing’. I call it devolution.
Just saw the shuttle landing this morning. Why on earth would a nation throw away such a clearly wonderful capability?
I don’t disagree with you at all. But remember that the decision to terminate Shuttle was made in 2003-2004. NASA has been marching down this incontrovertible path since that time, and now is well past the point of no return (to paraphrase our previous NASA Administrator).
“Just saw the shuttle landing this morning. Why on earth would a nation throw away such a clearly wonderful capability? How on earth did this nation that landed on the moon…”
The Shuttle can’t get us back to the Moon (or anywhere else). That’s one of several reasons why it’s being retired.
Duh…
“After this marvelous display of astronautics and professionalism in landing an unpowered craft the size of a DC-8, Elon Must is readying his ‘tin cans’. Some call it ‘game changing’. I call it devolution.”
It’s called getting back to the capabilities that enables actual human space exploration. Going beyond LEO requires “tin cans”, not “DC-8s”.
Think before you post.
Ugh…
Major Tom:
http://michaelgr.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/spacex-dragon-capsule-1.jpg
Looks like a pretty modest ride to ‘beyond LEO’. Can you say “span in a can?”
“Looks like a pretty modest ride to ‘beyond LEO’.”
No duh. I wrote “tin cans” plural.
Read, comprehend, and think before you post.
“Can you say ‘span in a can?'”
Can you say “wings don’t work in a vacuum”?
Lawdy…
Not to put too fine an edge on it, but I believe it’s “spam in a can”. You know, the lunch meat. Ditto what Major Tom said.
Major Tom wrote:
Think before you post.
Tom, some folks post flotsam just to draw attention to themselves. The individual to whom you were replying is one of those. He knows better. He’s just making up stuff to get attention.
My suggestion is simply not to respond to that. Responses give him the attention he wants. His behavior is well-known here, so it’s not like it’s a surprise to anybody.
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I am always amused by the folks who are impressed by things which are unique but not that difficult.
The PAO goes to great lengths to do this. Many years ago was an assembly at Clear Creek HS with a crew assembly with a crew who were telling about their latest mythic feats and they used the “and we are doing this all at 17,500 mph” to describe docking. It was all sort of humerous when the Q and A started as the first question was “do you really dock at rates of 17,500 mph, it doesnt look like that”. The mission commander was a “Name” and the question and resulting back and forth seemed to fluster him an enormous amount.
Power off landings are another example. Words like “marvelous display” should be left to events like the Airbus deadsticking into the Hudson and people walking away from it (the ability to not cartwheel as the engines “dragged” is hard to do)
this event is really no sim able…it isnt trained at all because the simulation devices wont do it and it is so unlikely.
The folks who “dead stick” the shuttle get enormous training. Endless flights in the STA, more simulation approaches then one can imagine and more or less the autopilot is doing it all up until the cylinder when the Commanders all seem to feel the need to do the last little bit (which with some modifications the autoland would do quite easily). It wasnt much of a challenge without the HUD and with it…well.
Almost all landings of over 100,000 pound “transports” are “power nuetral” meaning that during the final approach the power settings more or less remain constant. All fighters approach that way even onto the boat.
I am not saying the maneuver flown in the shuttle is for the stupid or incompetent, but it is not a super human thing either. the under 30 but over 20 folks in the family made the approach with no problems (in the sim) on their second time (they were not use to the mass, the T45 they were flying at the time is far smaller).
It does impress the impress able
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler:
“The folks who “dead stick†the shuttle get enormous training.”
I was not referring to the manual piloting (if you can call holding a reticle on a line on an LED display piloting). If was referring to the amazing digital-electro-mechanical choreography that shuttle brings a shuttle back to earth. NASA engineers have turned the unimaginably complex into the routine. It would be interesting to see the shuttle fly to the ISS and land unmanned. Expect a lot more drama when SpaceX starts flying.
Robert G. Oler wrote:
“Endless flights in the STA, more simulation approaches then one can imagine and more or less the autopilot is doing it all up until the cylinder when the Commanders all seem to feel the need to do the last little bit (which with some modifications the autoland would do quite easily).”
As I’m sure you know, the only reason why humans fly it at all upon landing goes back to the Right Stuff era where the test pilots rebelled at being no more than a specimen. They wanted to fly. There was some merit to their having the ability to manually fly the spacecraft if there was a failure, but otherwise there was really no reason other than politics for giving them the ability to fly.
The orbiter designed reflected the glamouous idea of letting the military pilots land the ship, but as you noted there’s really no reason for it. The Soviets flew and landed Buran by remote control in its only test flight.
One criticism by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) was loading both the cargo and crew in the same ship, which raised costs. By separating the two, risk is minimized. Constellation was doing to be the same problem, as any lunar vehicle would be inside the Ares V like with Apollo.
The Russians have been doing it the right way since the 1960s. Crew in a capsule, supplies in an unmanned cargo ship that can be docked automatically. We’ll assemble future craft going to the Moon at a rendezvous point in orbit, either at the ISS or some other point.
For a longer mission like Mars or an asteroid rendezvous, there’s the idea of parking supply ships along the way in advance so as the crew pass by they can dock and replenish what they need. All would be lighter, safer and cheaper to launch than putting all the eggs in one basket.
Robert G. Oler wrote:
“For a longer mission like Mars or an asteroid rendezvous, there’s the idea of parking supply ships along the way in advance so as the crew pass by they can dock and replenish what they need”
It would be interesting to hear of any non-earth orbit trajectory where this could be of any use.
amightywind wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I did not write that
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
the failure of NASA to evolve is evident in so many ways…the interaction of machines with people is just one of the more glaring.
The military answered those questions a long time ago. With proper people/machine interaction the capabilities expand and of course people dont die. You can throw machines away (expend them) at some rate that you would not expend people (and the military does force depletion as a function of its roles). To get a good handle on the evolution look at the direct line between USS Galveston (CLG 3), USS Chicago (CG 12) and then to Tico (GG 47) and her sisters.
Mercury had to be “less” in terms of automation but the line to shuttle is quite a bit shorter then the line I mention above. A LOT of money would have been saved by automating the landing “dance” and yet it floundered solely by the opposition of the “flying astronauts”. (most airline landings are not automated to speed up traffic flow but when the wx gets “bad” the automation level comes up).
As for splitting crew and cargo. That would naturally follow.
Look, the entire theory of human spaceflight has to change. The other night I was up burping/bottling baby so that Mom could sleep and one of the mythic heroes on the station had to be talked through by the folks at Huntsville…how to transfer data from one disk to another.
wrong skill set.
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote:
“For a longer mission like Mars or an asteroid rendezvous, there’s the idea of parking supply ships along the way in advance so as the crew pass by they can dock and replenish what they need.â€
Were they thinking about one or more of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points? There’s a pretty big delta V difference between LEO and cislunar orbit and it might make sense to refuel there, particularly if you are changing fuels from chemical (high thrust to get out of the gravity well quicker) to VASIMR or other high isp propulsion for a faster interplanetary trip.
Here ya go Oler:
http://www.thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=1345
@Robert G. Oler
“and then there are the other 99 percent or so Americans who find people who constantly talk about colonizing space…everything from obsessed to unable to deal with reality”
That’s because such folks like that have a 14th century mentality and believe that the Earth is at the center of a 10,000 year old universe. But this is 21st century! And we need to understand the environment and the universe that we live in. And we need to use that knowledge in order to enhance our survival and our prosperity!
Robert G. Oler wrote:
Look, the entire theory of human spaceflight has to change. The other night I was up burping/bottling baby so that Mom could sleep and one of the mythic heroes on the station had to be talked through by the folks at Huntsville…how to transfer data from one disk to another.
Well, I don’t dismiss what they do. They are heroes to me. And I don’t use that word lightly. They’re heroes to me because they have to be very smart, very team-oriented and capable of working under pressure, not to mention knowing they’re riding on something that can blow them to bits in an instant.
I remember one launch I witnessed in the 1990s where we returned to the hotel, turned on NASA Channel, and saw one of the astronauts being walked through rebooting a Windows laptop because something was wrong with the System Registry. Both my wife and I at the time answered computer hotlines, so we laughed. Blue Screen of Death in Space.
I think we have to remember that astronauts perform fundamentally different duties than the 1960s. It’s not the Right Stuff era any more. They’re research scientists, technicians, engineers, specialists. We’re not far from the day when a commercial rocket will carry a private sector scientist to a space station to conduct very specific medical or biological research, instead of training an astronaut to do it. I think that’s very cool and will be made possible by Obama’s proposal.
Gary Oleson wrote:
Were they thinking about one or more of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points? There’s a pretty big delta V difference between LEO and cislunar orbit and it might make sense to refuel there, particularly if you are changing fuels from chemical (high thrust to get out of the gravity well quicker) to VASIMR or other high isp propulsion for a faster interplanetary trip.
My college major was Political Science, not anything useful, so I don’t know all the particulars.
All I know is that the theory is to have cargo vessels launched in advance that the crew vehicle could rendezvous with en route. I’m sure there are ways to do it. That’s one benefit of Obama’s proposal, which is encourage out-of-the-box thinking instead of the way we’ve done it in the past. I’ll leave it to those with a stronger background in physics than mine to explain how it might be done.
Derrick wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
thanks…took me a bit to get through it, the advantages of bottling/burping Baby while Mommy is getting a rest!
This is typical Mark. He presents himself well, has well phrased presentation, the voice works for radio…and he fashions his arguments in coherent sentences.
Mark is however unable to separate his political leanings from his analysis of policy. Even if someone did exactly what he wants, if that someone is of a political bent that he (Mark) disagrees with, then Mark will oppose the policy on the greater lineage. Likewise things that he would oppose (like nation building) he can get all excited about if the political overarching view is something he likes. This is how he comes to notions like “the WMD went to syria”…it supports his greater view.
Mark centers his opposition to Obama’s plan (which is mostly just opposition to Obama) on support for exploration which is defined as a NASA effort to send NASA astronauts to do things…with no evidence that it would branch out from there even if we spend the extensive amounts of money to get the program on its feat.
Likewise how he treats commercial space. Mark has to be aware that commercial space is initially going to be government single source. He knows that because that is something that he favored (even with the single source) back in the 90’s. But now Obama is the one proposing it.
Look we all evolve (although I have recently gone back over the pieces I wrote in College and while some of them show the joys of “youth” none of them are “nutty”). But the trick is if our evolution is consistent with our ideology. In Mark’s case in my view it is not a fair statement that it is.
I’ve said it before but in July 1999 I wrote, and Kolker edited a piece for The Weekly Standard (we got paid for it)…Mark got his name on that piece after reading it. It is indecipherable from the Obama plan.
Marks the one who has shape shifted
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
FAir enough, I guess I am to dismissive of what they do…being familiar sort of breeds that.
But again to be fair, that is the fault primarily of the system that they operate in, not themselves. Although they do pick people who seem to conform to that system easily.
We just need a complete new structure.
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
“even if we spend the extensive amounts of money to get the program on its feat.”
Which is, I suppose, better than getting it on its fete.
I have recently gone back over the pieces I wrote in College and while some of them show the joys of “youth†none of them are “nuttyâ€.
When did that change? Did you put idiosyncratic scare quotes in everything back then, too? And not bother to put quotes around things other people write?
Gary Oleson wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I should be more careful. I have learned to do a few thins (grin) things while holding baby…but typing two handed with her in my lap is something that hasnt quite reached the peek (or peak) of perfection.
no excuse now, “Strawberry” is safely in her bed here in the business center sleeping. Her bed has the Jolly Roger with Skull and Crossbones painted on it…and her “nickname”.
Robert G. Oler
Rand Simberg wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
remember everything is Bush’s fault!
(sorry couldnt resist)
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote:
FAir enough, I guess I am to dismissive of what they do…being familiar sort of breeds that.
I don’t put them on a pedestal. I’ve been around too many politicians, celebrities and athletes in my life to think a person is perfect. Most of them would rather be treated as normal people, and that’s what I do. They happen to have a cool job, but I’m well aware of what they represent to this species’ future and that’s what I regard as heroic.
But again to be fair, that is the fault primarily of the system that they operate in, not themselves. Although they do pick people who seem to conform to that system easily.
That’s true of any large bureaucracy. They tend to pick people who conform to their system.
At my last job, I got a layoff notice and had three months to find another job in the company. I wound up in auditing. I’m a people-person with a team-oriented philosophy. That did not fit in with this group. I was chastised for being friendly and for trying to solve problems. I was told, “Your job isn’t to solve problems, it’s to report them.” Ick.
It was a bad mix, and frankly I was glad when I lost that job too. So was my wife. She said it broke her heart to see me go out the door every morning to that place knowing how they were trying to break my spirit.
But here I am now with a front-row seat for ongoings at KSC and couldn’t be happier.
I must say most of the astronauts I’ve met from the current generation seem quite team-oriented and relatively quiet compared to the Right Stuff generation. But I’m sure that’s just a public persona. They just don’t seem to have that swagger you saw in the 1960s.
We just need a complete new structure.
Well, having worked in all sorts of bureaucracies, public and private, I know neither has the exclusivity on boneheaded incompetence. I hope the startups like SpaceX and Orbital don’t have the intransigence and Machiavellian intrigue that goes with big corporations.
Robert G. Oler wrote:
remember everything is Bush’s fault
I thought everything was Obama’s fault. That’s what they said on Fox News.
“remember everything is Bush’s fault.”
That’s what they said on Fox News.
I must have missed that. Can you provide a cite where Fox News (as opposed to some political hack on Fox News) actually said that?
Rand Simberg wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
no one had those two sentences together
““remember everything is Bush’s fault.â€
That’s what they said on Fox News.”
take a deep breath or two, turn off Fox and try and read the threads…
you missed a sentence lets try it easy like
“Robert G. Oler wrote:
remember everything is Bush’s fault”
Stephen replied
“I thought everything was Obama’s fault. That’s what they said on Fox News.”
Dont go Fox News on us Rand
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
When cultures (or business) become “incestuous” with little or no outside interaction; the gene pool quickly degenerates to a product which is designed to maintain the bureaucracy not really accomplish much.
This trait was obvious in the Columbia investigation and I believe that it was accurate as well in Challenger (but I was overseas during “all” (or most) of that and had little first hand knowledge)
In Columbia’s case as odd as it seems, clearly the need to protect the internal mechanisms of the agency became more important then actually finding out what went wrong, removing the people who allowed that (a end game failure that would cost one their job in every other organization) and making sure that sort of management incest never started again.
Example A would be the performance of Linda H during the flight, in the immediate aftermath and then her performance during the investigation…and she still works for the agency (or did the last I checked).
When DAvid K got EVERYTHING wrong about the WMD in Iraq he alone had the courage to admit failure and resign. Linda H never even thought about it. Indeed well before the CAIB started to meet, she knew she had errored and should have written the letter. But the agencies culture does not push accountability.
The astronauts as a group show all this as well.
What makes corporations differ is that if the failure results in a business failure, there are usually penalties to pay. IN the armed forces these people “go out” at various promotion break points.
As I said…there needs to be a complete rethink of the agency.
Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 20th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
I thought everything was Obama’s fault. That’s what they said on Fox News…
yes…remember Billo never said the IRS was going to take one to jail on the health care…
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote:
What makes corporations differ is that if the failure results in a business failure, there are usually penalties to pay.
Well, I can say from personal experience that’s not true.
For example … At a fairly large automobile company I worked at in the early 1990s, a certain vice-president was sexually harassing his secretary while at the same time he impregnated a girl in the mail room. Ironically, they’d put him in charge of the company’s sexual harassment program!
What did they do to him?
They promoted him to president of a subsidiary company in Florida and shipped him out. He took the girl in the mail room with him.
At my last employer, the CEO had the Board of Directors in his pocket. He even married the daughter of one director. According to the company’s charter, they were to hold elections by the shareholders of board members, but they never told anyone about it so they kept re-electing each other.
The CEO pretty much destroyed company morale and made some boneheaded decisions but just sailed along because he had the board in his back pocket.
The company charter also required a mandatory retirement age of 65 for the CEO, so … he created a parent company on paper which wouldn’t be subject to the charter and appointed himself CEO of that. The board went along with it.
At least in the public sector you can usually get to the truth sooner or later through the Freedom of Information Act, and we have an election every few years for President/House/Senate. In the private sector, it can be swept under the rug.
The problem with FOIA is you need to know what you’re looking for, and if the agency refuses to cooperate you may need to spend years in court to force compliance. I did an FOIA with the FAA two years ago and got what I wanted in less than two weeks. I did an FOIA with the Navy back in the 1990s and the documents showed up about a year later.
There’s been very little said about this plan in the mainstream media (until the day of the announcement, that is), and I think it’s difficult for the public to know which blogs to look at to get more information. So this doesn’t surprise me too much.
Dont go Fox News on us Rand
What are you babbling about now? And why do you have such a demented obsession about Fox News?
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 21st, 2010 at 6:10 am
I think that we agree more then we disagree. I dont disagree with what you wrote; what I imprecisely was saying was that failures such as Columbia in private business usually impact the profit potential of the business badly and hence the actors change.
NOW I dont know if changing the actors of the corporation would change the corporation if the corporate mindset doesnt change (ie the interview might go “we are looking for someone more sneaky who wont get caught”) but if the mindset changes because of the imperilment of going out of business…government groups usually do not go out of business.
The USMC in particular (although the Navy has to some extent as well) seen this in Iraq. The Marines have always been a “fighting” group, but they have their bureaucracy as well and those twin “gods” came to blows in Anbar.
On the one hand Marines in Anbar were demanding X, Y, and Z…and on the other hand the “corporate” organization back at 8th and I (and The Pentagon) was having a very hard time breaking out of the “normal way” of doing business. The pivot point in that was the procurement of The Cougar. What tipped the balance in this case was that there was, at least to the folks in Anbar…a war on.
Robert G. Oler
Rand Simberg wrote @ April 21st, 2010 at 11:18 am
Fox News is great at what you did. Mesh two sentences together out of context.
My guess is that you did it in cut and paste error.
Fox does it repeatedly and on purpose
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/spaceballs.php?page=1
Robert G. Oler
http://www.rv-103.com/?p=457
this is a hoot. I guess the person is losing his job and for that there is some explanation of really going over the deep end. But it is “Fox News” logic…and that can be seen by the things listed to “save America’s Human Space Flight Program:”
It is clear that the person neither understands our system of government (the 10 year appropriation thing is goofy) nor public opinion (1 percent of every tax dollar goes to NASA…yeah thats what the rest of the people want).
Its pretty much internet flotsam but the only reason I post it is that it illustrates how screwed up the anti Obama folks are. And how their arguments are just all wrapped up in “we dont like Obama”.
losers
Robert G. Oler
Fox News is great at what you did. Mesh two sentences together out of context.
My guess is that you did it in cut and paste error.
Fox does it repeatedly and on purpose
That would be a stupid guess. Anyone can scroll up to your post and see that it was an accurate cut and paste of the last line. I’m assuming that it was directed at me (though as with many of your incoherent blatherings, it’s never possible to be sure). I’m still wondering why you’re so obsessed with Fox News.
Rand Simberg wrote @ April 21st, 2010 at 11:18 am
And why do you have such a demented obsession about Fox News?..
Because Fox News is part of the sickness that is imperiling The Republic.
Debate among both sides of an issue is extroadinarily helpful and in fact is the cornerstone of “We the People” making informed decisions about the future of The Republic. Even in a setting as small as human spaceflight and a stage as small a this blog, informed debate is quite useful. I use to pooh pooh the notion of on orbit “refueling” and yet the debate on the topic (with you and others) has completely changed my viewpoints (and apparently a lot of others) on the topic.
The “stage” for 24 hour cable is partially fact driven news (ie X number of murders a day) but the primary venue of it is opinion based discussion. That is no secret, when Turner started CNN “a long time” ago even Turner recognized that.
So Fox mixing News and commentary is nothing. All of the cable stations do it and thats great.
What is unique about Fox is that in their news and their commentary there are apparantly at the network few if any people who do any serious look to see if the commentary expressed is anything next to ‘real” or “reality” based…Indeed the reality at Fox is that they look for “conservative” opinions that are not reality based, but whose sole value is to stoke the perceived reality of their viewing audience.
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/spaceballs.php?page=1
list some of the pieces that “Fox” has passed off as commentary on the changes (which I know you support) that Obama has proposed for the space effort. I know (from reading both your blogs) that you and Whittington engage in the analysis of the effort…but aside from that minor difference; there is really no difference in “reality” commentary of people who would claim that now American’s will be held “hostage” to a person who would be let on the air and say “there are death panels” in the health care bill.
Neither are true. They might be someone’s opinion and everyone gets one; but a network should at least present people whose opinions are remotely ground up in fact.
The dirty secret is that both Fox and Limbaugh poll (through Luntz) to see what their viewers believe and then use those polls to present those viewpoints to them; to spur on continued viewer/listener ship.
Fox is in its “conservative” commentary the network equivalent of Father Charles Edward Coughlin . Both Coughlin and “Slim” Lindbergh believed America should stay out of Europes business but Lindbergh did it without resorting to playing on fears and stereotypes of people. Lindbergh did it with logic and a notion of American history.
Other then that? Fox has great eye candy in its female reporters. Although I do hear that Laurie Dhue does feel abit used after her stint on camera in manacles and shackles!
Robert G. Oler
Rand Simberg wrote @ April 21st, 2010 at 2:01 pm
the last line only, but in context with the first line, it was a figment of your ability to use a mouse
Robert G. Oler
; there is really no difference in “reality†commentary of people who would claim that now American’s will be held “hostage†(addition in CAPS) ON THE SPACE STATION BY OBAMA’S Plan to a person who would be let on the air and say “there are death panels†in the health care bill.
sorry the editor regrets the error
Robert G. Oler
Look, Robert,
Rand has a transterrestrial view on things. Just read his musings.
Only talk about Space Politics with Rand. That’s what this website is for.
the last line only, but in context with the first line, it was a figment of your ability to use a mouse
The first line made no more sense than the last one did, because (as usual) you never put quotes around what others are saying, as opposed to you. The only way to tell if it’s someone else’s words is that they tend to be more grammatical. The entire comment (like most of yours) was babble. I didn’t want to repeat the whole thing.
[typical Fox News derangement ignored, as though CNN or MSNBC are any better]
Doesn’t sound like our 35 year plus ‘Mission to LEO’ program has captured the public’s imagination:-)..
The 6 year old Constellation Mission did not capture too many people’s imagination.
Most people think of the moon landings as if they were not too long ago. The pictures returned on Apollo have a timeless quality. MANY people believe that the moon is where the Shuttle goes every week.
If you want people to know more and support more, you have to catch them early like in the later elementary grades and middle school. These days the best way to catch them is in school where they spend half or more of their time, or in massive-interactive-player games, which is the most common form of entertainment. You might also catch them on some of the specialty kids TV channels (Disney, Nickelodeon, FOXKids, etc). Otherwise its hit or miss and you are not likely to get to many.
And as much as they learn science and math in school, they need to learn about the history and the significance and the potential for the future. They have to be able to visualize how they might contribute or be a part of it one day. The audience that needs to be getting most of the attention are 12-15 years away from getting out of college and starting careers, and maybe a lot longer.
Scientists and engineers and NASA seem to have this fixation on having the kids try to work LIKE engineers and scientists, building moon buggies or robots. That will get some kids interested, but based on the present STEM situation in the US, it not having much of an effect. How many of your friends did these sorts of hands on projects in school? How many built and launched model rockets. I’d guess you were in a pretty small minority.
There are relatively very few schools that teach any astronomy or space science. Its usually an elective taught to very few. Even if they teach these subjects, there are far fewer that teach anything about the history of either.
If they have no concept of how they might participate. If they have no concept of the history, then the knowledge and science that has been learned has no context. And, they really have no concept of why they would want to be a rocket scientist or engineer or why they should support the space program.
I’ve become convinced, most of the people who are supporting space, along with NASA; their aim is entirely wrong. They are aimed at the wrong population, using the wrong methods. Mostly, 95% of the effort is aimed solely at the people who already have an interest. About 5% is aimed at what becomes minor publicity aimed at the general populace. It has very little effect.
This is what my dissertation is focusing on.
This one’s for Stephen C Smith: How could what you experienced in your stint in auditing (DON”T SOLVE THE PROBLEM, REPORT THE PROBLM!) be anything like what I experienced as a Navy pilot? I was in a squadron at North Island in 87 and one day heard the following. “This is the training department, our job is NOT training!! Our job is THE DOCUMENTATION OF TRAINING!!” Never looked at the Navy the same way again. Thanks for bringing back the memory! (I think)
“The orbiter designed reflected the glamorous idea of letting the military pilots land the ship, but as you noted there’s really no reason for it. The Soviets flew and landed Buran by remote control in its only test flight.” — I’ve read in Wayne Hale’s blog that the Shuttle does have the auto-landing capability. So the only reason that out of 131 missions the Shuttle have never landed on auto was the Right Stuff? Seriously?
[…] more: Space Politics » No, they haven't been paying attention Permalink Comments […]
>>So the only reason that out of 131 missions the Shuttle have never landed on auto was the Right Stuff? Seriously?
I remember bringing this up before STS-1. The Shuttle has always had autoland, originally required because of the uncertain weather in Florida, but many people at JSC did not believe it even existed, and what pilot would give up the chance to land it? That’s why the X-37 was important; it and the X-34, DC-X, and X-33 were unmanned and would land autonomously.
From an engineering point of view, it would be better to have the pilot assessing the overall situation than focused on the stick and rudder.
Regarding the program, NASA should not be in the entertainment business, it should be producing research and development of practical value to the US civil aerospace industry. We used to lead the world in aircraft and in commercial satellite launch services. In the last five years I think there have been three satellites launched from US soil that weren’t paid for by US taxpayers. To the NACA, industry was the customer, and they helped the US civil aerospace industry lead the world. To NASA, industry is just a vendor, and NASA has done nothing while most of the major US aircraft manufacturers disappeared.
Cold Case is a nice TV series but the story sometimes does not appeal to me much`-~